With new films from old masters Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, fresh comedy talents behind the camera and two Roman epics in the pipeline, these are exciting times for homegrown movies. Geoffrey Macnab looks ahead

Over the past week, our crime correspondent and his opposite number from the US city of Baltimore have been reporting on each other's patches. The idea was to find out not only how true to reality was the depiction of the urban underworld now familiar to British television viewers from The Wire, but also to find out how our own crime black spots and policing appear from outside. And there is more good news than bad.

<i>&lsquo;It has provoked an astonishing level of public debate and been an under-appreciated showcase for social diversity,&rsquo; Channel 4&rsquo;s Julian Bellamy defends Big Brother while shuttting it down</i>

Since Labour came to power, the level of violent crime in Britain has risen dramatically, by 70 per cent. Gun crime is up by more than half and there are more than 100 serious knife crimes each day. Under Labour, fatal stabbings reached the highest level on record.

Breaking the Mould: the Story of Penicillin began and ended with the same scene – a government apparatchik addressing a scientific committee to tell them that the PM himself had given the go-ahead for the industrial development of penicillin, and then calling for a vote of thanks to the man responsible for this great scientific advance. The camera eyed up a likely-looking cove with a centre parting and gold-rimmed glasses, bracing himself to look modest, but then it became clear that it wasn't his name that had been called out. It was, as every schoolboy knows, Alexander Fleming who got the credit and the postage stamp, while Sir Harold Florey – whose team did most of the heavy lifting in developing penicillin as a practical medicine – had to content himself with a third share of the Nobel Prize and (a bit too late for his benefit) this BBC4 drama putting the matter right.

Dominic West, the old Etonian star of 'The Wire' who criticised US actors playing Brits, appears on BBC4 next week as an Australian scientist in the drama 'Breaking the Mould'. He tells Gerard Gilbert how his background has shaped perceptions of the roles he can play